the very hush hush (part two)

where did i leave off?

weyburn! shainas and jennifus met as at dq, and we all enjoyed sweet ice cold treats. we also went to the sweet weyburn mall, and looked at the kitties in the pet store. we spent the afternoon lazing around shaina's place, watching little nicky, being sweet. we were met at the venue by kelly thiessen, who runs TAGS (the venue). now, this place is probably the coolest venue we've played at yet. the room upstairs is where the bands play, and downstairs there's this rad lounge with video games and fun. we got to hang out with our bffz in restrain the enemy. brennon asked if we wanted to play x-BOX. we all laughed alot.

after the show we went to tim hortons and got made fun of for being "emo". kalen and i are going to burn down their houses. but not actually. internet police!! anyways, when we got back to shaina's, kalen was watching a clockwork orange. that is a strange movie. we fell asleep watching fletch. not a great movie. thankfully i have my "sleep" mix, and azure ray sang me right to sleep.

we left for regina sometime in teh morning. at breakfast i got to sit in a big sweet chair, and it made me feel like the best. thanks for the chair shaina. we squished five of us in our station wagon somehow. karl bought us chips and pop, and it made the ride much more enjoyable. we pulled into regina, and went straight to dinner with the rte boys. hanging out with those guys definetly reminds me why i'm glad to be back in regina. friends are amazing, and i'm so glad i've got to see so many this tour. anyways, regina was such an amazing show. so many friends. so many new friends. everyone just gave us so much love.

we got a few days off in regina, which was also soooo nice. then we headed off to winnipeg, for some really good times. i got to spend every night with my lovely friend Kim. we got some good bubble tea the first night, good perkins the second night, and good nacho libre the third. the show in winnipeg was small, but my older brother got to see us play for the first time, so that was really cool. i think i like winnipeg a little more after every trip. we also watched..ALOT of lost. which was also, ridiculously good.

after winnipeg was russell, mb. we got to spend the night with our bffz in the fortuante, and got to listen to some GOOD hardcore music with them and our new friend in anew. both bands are sick like aids, and just.really good. and the breakdown in "this is more" by stick to your guns is the heaviest thing EVER.

"MOVE!"

anyways, after russell, we headed back to regina, and today i went to the imax. we also bought some herbal cigarettes and took pictures of us smoking them. just tough.

i think i'm going to go buy the outsiders tonight. just a great book.

LOVE YOU!!!!

Jamison.

the very hush hush.

good times.

my friend drew says, "good times" alot. these last few weeks have definetly deserved the phrase. i'm in winnipeg right now, and i've had the pleasure of seeing so many good people while i've been here. anyways, the whole thing started in alberta:

medicine hat was an interesting day. we were all a little tired from the trip, but by the time we finished walking around superstore, looking for a healthy meal, we all seemed to be back in good spirits. we settled on carrots and ranch dip/pumpkin pie/bread/choclate milk...delicious. so we sat outside of the superstore, and enjoyed a very warm day. we walked over to the mall, checked out hmv, picked up an essential cheap tv show box set on dvd, and were off to the venue. if there's one thing to say about medicine hat, it's that the kids that go to shows are really nice kids. they may not be a huge fan of your music, but man, they're so nice. we met a super nice christian kid named Travis, who makes music as "7th Ave." him and his friends were so welcoming and nice to us, that they made us feel right at home. we played horrendus that night. there were only two outlets in the whole venue, and i'm pretty sure they weren't grounded correctly. either way, i had to plug my guitar into the PA system, which sounded like utter trash. because of our lame technical issues we only played four or five songs. again, the kids were nothing but kind to us. as we packed up our gear, lots of people came and talked with us, and made us feel a bit better about our crappy preformance. that night we also met our new friends in Adverse Vital Signs. easily some of the nicest guys we've played with. we were stoked that we would get to play three nights in a row with good guys.

so after the show we made the late night trek to swift current, home of our favourite person in the whole world, Bobby! we had all met bob at briercrest, and we soon became total bff. anyways, that night as the rest of the guys slept, bobby, brett (bobby's roomate) and i stayed up laughing at myspace bulletins, and having sweet webcam conversations with girls in bc.

we slept in nice and late the next morning, then headed to mcdonalds after some quality television watching. (roger lodge is a king among men). we said our goodbyes with bobbykins, and were off to the next show in moose jaw. we were all pretty stoked about playing in moose jaw, seeing as we've always had fun experiences playing there. it was raining pretty hard that day, but it didn't seem to get our spirits down. we hauled in all our gear, and then sat in the mall for a few. the cdplus didn't sell any album leaf, but they did have a ben gibbard/andrew kenny split ep, that i didn't buy for some reason. anyways, we headed back to the venue to find out that our friend Brad wasn't aloud to come to the show, because his parents thought it would be too late on a school night. it sucks because i know he wanted to see us play pretty bad. thankfully we'll be back at the end of june, and he'll be able to make it then. anyways, that night was like a reunion. we saw so many old friends, that it made us realize pretty quickly why we moved back to the praries. our set was MUCH better that night, opposed to in Med Hat. i was blown away at how many kids were singing along, and rocking out. i love how not only did we get to have a great night playing music, but we got to do it with so many friends. two of our friends came from the camp they were working at, and they offered to have us over at the camp for night. of course we agreed (we're actually leading worship at the camp later in the summer), and off we went. we kept rob awake on the drive by talking about the band. andy kept saying "he didn't give a rat's ass", but none of us really know what that means.

we made it to the camp safe and sound, and that morning we (andy and i) slept in, which was followed by some serious "lost" watching. our friend Mark had never seen any episodes, so we watched the first two episodes. (andy and rob are now both getting into it. i love it!) anyways, we spent the rest of the afternoon drinking coffee and playing chess. watching Karl and Drew play chess was like the funniest thing i've ever seen. somehow our imaginations made a game of chess into some crazy battle, war thing. don't even ask. andy and i also messed up a pot of coffee. which lead to a conversation my friend Kim and I had, but that's a whole other story.

so we left from camp, to assiniboia, where we were playing that night. it was great seeing another old briercrest friend Aaron. he was kind of enough to not only let us play, but he let us crash on his floor that night AND his parents made us pancakes the next morning! assiniboia was a super fun show, with a good turnout. the stage was really high though. i felt so blessed to be able to look into the crowd and see people singing along. such a change from just a year, where no one knew or wanted to know us. praise the Lord! after the show we went to the Assiniboia Relay for Life. i guess people walk around their civic center, raising money for cancer research (i think? correct me if i'm wrong). anyways, our friend Grayson has a new band, and they were playing a set. they're all really young, but man, they have some CRAZY potential. they didn't have a name, so drew came up with "The History" for them. so if you ever hear about a really rad band out of Gravelbourg called The History, make sure you check them out.

it's really late, so i'll finish this lovely story later. i'll post some pics as soon as i can too!

i love you! and chances are i really miss you, and can't wait to see you again.

Jamison.

in this ha-ha-home on ice.

the thing about these bands, is that they're really good. maybe you've heard of them, and you scoff at the notion that you haven't. but maybe you haven't, and you'll thank me for them later. either way, enjoy:

clap your hands say yeah!
this band has NO label support...none. the fact that i can go to any cdplus/hmv/whatever and pick up their disc is support that this band has something going on. last year they were called the "hottest unsigned band" in the states. pitchfork gave their debut record a 9.1. the truth is, they're worth the hype.

http://www.myspace.com/clapyourhandssayyeah

islands
the unicorns were a band from montreal. islands started a few months after the unicorns broke up. they seem to share the same sense of indie pop, catchiness, but with a more optimistic way of getting things done. though the band just had their drummer leave, expect more great things.

http://www.myspace.com/islandsareforever

dungen
last fall, dungen's second record, "ta det lungt", was my favourite record to fall asleep to. now, this doesn't mean they're some sort of ambient, album leaf-ish group (not that there's anything wrong with that). these guys actually really rock. they've got this fuzzy, psychadelic sound, that just melted me into sleep. oh yeah, they sing exclusively in sweedish!

http://www.myspace.com/dungen

wolfmother
these guys get alot of rad publicity. i saw them play on "muchondemand" for crying out loud. regardless, they just straight up rock. i think they've released one of hte best albums of 2006. just TRY and not nod your head to "dimension"

http://www.myspace.com/wolfmother

you say party! we say die!
the captains had an oppurtunity to open for this lovely band. i had picked up their cd as soon as i moved to bc, and i wasn't disapointed. they're live show is even better. expect BIG things from this band.

http://www.myspace.com/yousaypartywesaydie


Jamison.

in a safe place.

i wish i could write. not like this, write, but like write write. i wish i could just pick up a guitar and write a song. my friend andy can do it really well, and i've always been a little jealous of that. (i know he reads this so, here's looking at you kid). anyways, today i realized that i haven't wrote a song in forever. now most of the songs i do write don't end up as captain songs, but that never really bothered me. it seems like every time i pick up a guitar, i can't think of anything new to do. just the same songs. at least i've got this. maybe i'll start focusing my independant creativity on something like...writing this blog! or, maybe i'll follow in my friend drew's footsteps and write a novel. i always liked that scene in waking life, where the guys in the coffee shop, writing furiously. this girl then asks him, "what are you writing". he starts to tell her about a story, that is just the characters living life. maybe that's what i'll write about. four early twentys musicians, struggling to make ends meet, while trying to pursue a dream, that everyone thinks they should give up on. i doubt it would get published. maybe i'll write a screenplay. who knows. i've got all summer to do something productive and artistic and creative with my time. chances are i'll end up eating alot of fast food and watching too many movies. maybe, i'll write a letter. like a REAL letter, not a 10 K email. i don't really know who i'd send a letter to. i know, the only way i'll be able to do all this great creative stuff is if i discipline myself to do it. SO, here's my plan (i'm making this up as i go, it will probably need revisions, so feel free to leave a comment and help me out):

i'll make a checklist, with certain guidelines, that features every type of writing i mentioned above (plus some more). now, i'm going to organize in such a way, that every week i should have done something to either start, continue on, or finish one of these goals. so how does this look:

June
----
[] write a song
[] write a poem
[] write a letter
[] write a short story
[] start writing a novel

for the following months, i'll do the same task, or continue working on one of those.

well, it's quite ambitious i know. wish me luck?

Jamison.